


Trip (The Classic Atari Remix)

by vissy



Category: Smallville
Genre: Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-20
Updated: 2005-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-02 03:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vissy/pseuds/vissy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete’s much too ordinary for this strange world. Takes place not long after ‘Red’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trip (The Classic Atari Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Victoria P](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/)’s [Remix Redux III: Reloaded](http://remix.illuminatedtext.com/index.php) challenge. Based on [Trip](http://www.livejournal.com/users/martianhouse/4111.html) by MartianHouseCat.

Pete’s car takes one look at the outskirts of Grandville and starts complaining. He nurses her closer to town, but she’s not happy, and Pete doesn’t like the sound of her engine, not one little bit. “Maybe we’re out of gas?” asks Clark.

Pete rolls his eyes because it’s so Clark to suggest he’d be dumb enough to embark on a roadtrip with three drops in the tank. He strokes her wheel gently as he steers her off the road, coaxing her to a shuddering, hiccuppy halt. They clamber out and pop her lid, staring forlornly (but manfully) at her mysterious inner workings. “Mr Frankel’s class? Proving kinda unhelpful right now,” says Pete. “Any ideas?”

Clark shrugs. “I just lift them.”

She hisses at that idea, hawking up an oil glob and hurling it in Clark’s direction, and Pete’s got to clench his hands between his thighs not to piss himself, it’s so funny. He shoves her lid down again and gives her a loving smile. She might not be well, but she’s all class.

*

For a normally bustling road, there’s not a car to be seen. Pete’s keen to get a call through to Mr Kent for a pick up, not just to save the towing fee but to keep his precious baby out of the paws of some dimwit Grandville mechanic who might not treat her with the tenderness she deserves. His cell proves just as obstinate as his car, however, and Clark pokes at the ancient keypad of the Kent Farm Fone in a desultory way that means he’s neither receiving nor expecting a signal. The communication blackout has them both grinning like crazy, because it’s just plain weird sometimes the way Smallville can’t let you go but won’t let you back in. Pete’s been living in the Twilight Zone so long it feels comfy, which is just one reason he likes to head out every now and again to see how the rest of the planet gets along.

He thinks about staying with big blue and waiting for a helpful passerby, but Clark’s bouncing around like a big goof, looking drunk on sunshine. Pete wouldn’t mind a bit of exercise himself, although his feet’ll probably curse him before they reach a payphone. He cocks his head towards Grandville, Clark nods and smiles, and they’re off. There’s a blister on Pete’s left baby toe by the time he realises that Clark could’ve just run back to Smallville a thousand times over by now.

Fuck it. It’s a roadtrip.

*

They stumble up to a roadside diner that Pete could swear he’s never clapped eyes on before. It looks crummy and disreputable – there’s none of the Stepford sparkle of Smallville’s eateries – but there are six cars in the lot, which is more than Pete’s seen on the road so far, and he figures he’ll take their word for it.

Inside, it’s cleaner than he expected, and his nostrils tell him the coffee’s good, although the deep fryer might be suspect. Clark’s peering at the counter with his smelling-a-fart face, which Pete now recognises as X-ray mode. Probably scoping for rogue wildlife.

“You phone home, man. I gotta take a piss,” he says to Clark quietly, because although there are patrons talking, cutlery clinking and some unlikely pop-punk shit bleating through the jurassic era speakers, there’s a silence beneath, and he doesn’t want to draw attention to them. To Clark.

Which is stupid, he thinks, as he shoves his way into the men’s room, because Clark looks as desperately ordinary as he ever did. Mostly, Pete’s getting kind of used to the idea of an EBE in flannel shirts and workboots. He can either fill his head to overflowing with the idea, or he can let it slide away. Sometimes Pete thinks it’s easier to feel impressed than surprised, although he’s not sure why that should be. Surprise is just too exhausting to hold on to.

He pisses his name against the rusty porcelain and casts an eye over the local graffiti – someone’s done a pretty funny cartoon of a Smallville High cheerleader with three tits - and then remembers suddenly what he just said to Clark out there, and groans. But what are they gonna do, stop talking altogether? That worked for, like, a _day_.

*

Clark’s bouncing again; Pete knows it before he even sees him because he can feel the pulse of the floorboards beneath his feet. He’s never stopped to think how often that happens, and how strange it is. He spots Clark looming over an arcade game in one dim corner of the diner, and then Pete pretty much stops breathing because it’s Galaxian, man, fuckin’ _Galaxian_. He’d know that crazy ass cabinet art anywhere.

Clark swings around with a look of total, psychotic glee, and just like that, Pete freezes, because he knows that face: it’s the face of the red terror. He pulls himself out of it before Clark can notice (he thinks, he hopes) and then he feels that familiar, blessed slippage, and _Galaxian_.

“Greetings, Starfighter,” booms Clark in his best Voice of Doom. “You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier from Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.”

*

“Clark, man, how is this possible?” Pete says in reverent tones, elbowing Clark out of the way so he can get a closer look. It’s so ugly, it’s beautiful, and damned if it’s not working, even though it’s got to be more than twenty years old. Way older than them, that’s for sure. He strokes the worn plastic buttons and watches the little aliens glide about the screen in curlicues of mild-mannered intergalactic frenzy. His dad once told him that Galaxian was the first colour arcade game; this sweetheart is an _antique_. And it’s like no one notices or even cares. They just keep slurping their coffee, elbows to the Formica, and Pete shakes his head. “What’s a classic like this doing in this shitty Grandville diner? It’s someone’s baby, gotta be. Look at it, man. It’s _fine_. Someone takes care of this machine. Someone loves it.”

“And they just leave it out here for anyone to play with. Cool.” Clark’s fingers caress the cabinet’s puke-green edge with affection.

“Ought to be in a museum,” says Pete, feeling vaguely scandalised. When Clark raises a dubious brow, he qualifies his remark with a muttered, “Or on Ebay, at least.”

“Too much hassle; think of the freight. Anyhow, I’m telling you, Pete, it’s here for recruitment purposes. Centauri’ll turn up any minute.”

“Please,” Pete scoffs, scrabbling in his pockets for change. “Did you get a hold of your dad?”

“Uh-huh. He’s busy right now, but he’ll be by around four.”

Pete looks at his watch and peers into his wallet; will it be enough? He passes Clark a twenty and says, “Order us some coke and fries and as much change as they’ve got.” Greatness beckons.

*

Pete’s entranced by the time the waitress comes by with caffeine, grease and more coinage. He’s got his galaxip dragging from side to side, shooting shit out of those flappy little space freaks. The march of aliens down the screen must be stopped at all costs.

“Migunnageddago?” Clark slurs through a faceful of fries.

“I dunno, man. Don’t forget the Pong incident.”

“Zinagziden.” He sounds doleful, but what can Pete say? Clark’s a menace with a game console, and Pete’s dad is still heartbroken. These old machines need the proper respect, he thinks, as he jams his joystick to the left to avoid a death charge. The amplified mono rejoinder’s not loud enough to cover the sound of Clark swallowing approximately seventy-six fries at once. “Want some, Pete?”

“Uh-huh,” he mutters, watching the convoys hover. Clark feeds him like a baby bird. “Mmf. S’good.”

“There are roaches in the kitchen,” says Clark doubtfully. It doesn’t prevent either of them from scarfing more fries.

“Don’t worry, man. Just think of ‘em as Greg.”

“Pete! Ew.”

*

The game’s so simple it eludes him for awhile, but Pete thinks he’s got it worked out. The flagships are worth up to 800 points, but you have to take out their buddies first if you want the maximum points. Clark jigs up and down beside him, beeping worse than the machine as he tries to explain the scoring system. He’s not making much sense to Pete, but that’s cool. Clark’s always been amazing at math, but the teachers mark him down because he can’t show his workings.

He can see Clark’s hand twitching towards the enticing red knob of the joystick and smacks him across the palm. Clark just laughs and chirrips like R2-D2. He’s surprisingly patient for a guy who never gets a turn; he must be used to it by now. Pete’s learning that you can get used to just about anything. It’s like slipping into the rhythm of a game until it’s the only thing that matters, even when it doesn’t matter at all.

Once he’s in the pinprick-pupil, drooly-mouth groove, it’s the bugs – not the little guys on screen, but the electronic hiccups – that really intrigue him. Like, sometimes a flagship’ll snake along the side of the screen with its two attack aliens, and if he blasts the first escort, the second one just drifts off and reappears at the top of the screen. He can take out the flagship for 800 points then without even touching the stray; it’s like it doesn’t count anymore, like he can see it but the game can’t. It’s kind of neat, and it appeals to both his merciful and his machiavellian sides, but somehow it doesn’t seem respectful. They all need to die.

Clark’s getting embarrassing as the numbers rack up, bopping around with arms flailing, chanting, “Go Peeete! Go Peeete!”

Pete blushes for his friend, although he’s beginning to suspect no one gives a shit about big, dumb aliens around here anyhow. “Please, fool. That’s so six years ago.”

His new high score is a thing of world-rocking beauty. Behind the counter, the waitress yawns.

*

They sprawl in a booth nearby, sharing a banana split. Saving the planet’s left Pete low on cash, but it’s a lot more fun then messing around with an emulator.

Clark’s peering at the game like it smells funny, and Pete’s just gearing up to ask if there’s a body tucked inside when Clark says, “I wonder why they’re dragonflies?”

“Dragonflies? They’re bees, man. Don’t you know anything?” Clark can be so _dense _sometimes.

“Well, why are they bees, then? Whoever heard of aliens that look like bees?” Pete just stares at him pointedly, and Clark subsides with a grumble.

Best roadtrip ever. Or since summer at least. Pete prays his car is okay.


End file.
